By Ebere Agozie
The Supreme Court in Thursday fixed Oct. 3 for judgment in a suit filed by Sen. Smart Adeyemi challenging the conduct of the April 14 primary election of the All Progressives congress (APC) for Kogi governorship election.
Justice John Okoro fixed the date after taking arguments from both parties.
Adeyemi is challenging the validity of the primary election which produced Ahmed Ododo as APC’s flagbeare for the November 11 governorship election.
The grouse of the appellant is that the provisions of Electoral Act 2022 and the guidelines of the APC were compromised during the primary election.
Specifically, Adeyemi who recently represented Kogi West senatorial district in the Senate is claiming that the result brought out by APC in suport of Ododo was fraudulent and invalid on the grounds that the primary election was conducted in only 11 out of 239 wards in the state.
A Federal high court in Abuja and the Abuja division of the Court of Appeal had delivered judgments against him on the ground that the allegations of malpractices were not proved as required by law, promoting him to go to Supreme Court.
Adeyemi lawyer, Musibawu Adedtunmbi, SAN, after adopting his briefs prayed the apex court to grant the reliefs sought by Adeyemi.
He argued that the primary election of April 14 was conducted in gross violation of section 84 of the Electoral Act, 2022.
“Election did not hold in 228 wards and that the claim was supported by INEC’s field officers in their report on the primary election.
However, the APC counsel, AbdulWahab Mohammed prayed the court to dismiss Adeyemi’s appeal on the ground that it is against the concurrent findings of fact by the Court of Appeal and the Supreme court.
On its part, the INEC counsel, Adeyemi Adeniyi, SAN, after adopting his briefs told that apex court that the appeal was grossly incompetent and that the decision of the two lower courts should be affirmed because there was no allegation of perversion of justice in the decisions of the two lower courts.
Similarly the third respondent, Ahmed Ododo through his counsel, Francis Ekpa asked the supreme court to dismiss the appeal on the ground that it has become academic, adding that the 180 days within which APC can conduct another primary election for nomination of candidate has since lapsed. (NAN)
